


Zero-Sum Game

by kanadka



Category: Shokuryou Jinrui | Starving Anonymous (Manga)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bad Science, Gangbang, M/M, Mad Science, Multi, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Not Safe or Sane or Consensual, Rape By Proxy, Sex Pollen, Voyeurism, definitely not medically accurate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-06
Updated: 2020-06-06
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:35:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24572410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kanadka/pseuds/kanadka
Summary: During Kiriyu's employment at the Cradle, he decides to bring Yamabiki along. What better way to solve the Regenerator Project than have your brilliant grad student do all the work, so you can take the credit?The only problem is, that'sexactlywhat the grad student wants. Kiriyu needs Yamabiki badly, but Kiriyu also refuses to give Yamabiki the satisfaction. Or any satisfaction.
Relationships: Halcyon Group Members/Yamabiki, Kiriyu Ryuzo/Yamabiki
Comments: 5
Kudos: 7
Collections: Fandom 5K 2020





	Zero-Sum Game

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Piinutbutter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Piinutbutter/gifts).



> Humongous thanks to my beta vachtar, who did such a fab job at such an eleventh hour. <333

Kiriyu Ryuzo - M.Sc, M.D., Ph.D, Professor, principal investigator and leader of his own lab and research group - would admit it: he'd been a mess when the Cradle's operatives had found him. 

He hadn't slept on a bed in a week; hadn't showered in two. He was hungry, he was desperate. Kiriyu had known hunger and desperation of a different kind. He hadn't thought it could gnaw at him the way it did, but this was something primal. More base. Deeper in the lizard brain than his usual thirst for things like recognition, praise, respect ... and maybe in the end a little knowledge, too.

They'd given him the grand tour of the facility and what he'd seen should have shocked him. It should have disturbed him.

Perhaps, on whatever level of humanity was left to him, it did.

But the remainder of Kiriyu was so openly hungry, famished, needy, craving, that when they told him they wanted him to continue his genetic work on a highly classified special project that had recently stalled due to an unfortunate incident with an escaped subject, the only thing he heard was _special_.

And after that magic word, it didn't really matter so much anymore, did it? The moans, the huffed breaths, the grunting, the sounds of slapping skin, as they walked him through A Block past the cells upon cells of what were once women with what were once men.

Animalistic? Vulgar? The trombone or bassoon was a vulgar instrument on its own. But in the grand symphony of things, why, they could be auditory perfection. And it was the conductor who got the accolades, who got his name in lights. Kiriyu couldn't wait to take the stage.

"The Regenerator Project, if you please, Dr Kiriyu," announced Sadatomi - an underling of some sort. Sadatomi had then handed him a thick folder of collected papers, research notes, lab records, and other miscellanea. Kiriyu told himself he'd sort through them later, when no one was around, so no one could know that he didn't, in fact, know it all. That it was his lab that had made the progress he'd stuck his name to, but not his leadership. That it was his son-in-law-to-be menace who had been the real driving force behind the wheel.

Yamabiki should have been dead. After what he'd done to Kiriyu's career - to Kiriyu's lab, Kiriyu's position - oh, also Kiriyu's daughter, that too - it was what he justly deserved. But Kiriyu had stuck him in the proverbial fish barrel and he'd come out smelling of roses. And radiation. Not that the radiation even mattered, because Yamabiki had neatly sidestepped it by injecting himself with what-have-you DNA, apparently! A radiation dose of the sort Kiriyu had arranged for should've ripped him open but Yamabiki's accidental, emergency measures had made possible what medical science had never solved. Kiriyu's own research had never managed it. Yamabiki lived, and that was an affront to nature. To the origin of life, which Yamabiki knew without knowing.

The Regenerator Project itself had been unimportant to Kiriyu. The Masters needed food; surely it was a simplistic problem to provide it. But it quickly became more the principle of the thing to Kiriyu: the solution to a problem, the origin of life. Life- _sustaining_ life. He could hear it now: thank you, Dr Kiriyu, for fixing what ailed us, for helping us with our problem, for doing what others couldn't!

Except that one other could, and Kiriyu knew that. _Yamabiki_ knew that.

The administrative staff at the Cradle would provide anything Kiriyu wanted. He'd expected it to be just like it was at the university: you fill in a few forms, you submit a few grant proposals, you craft an argument for your ethics board review. What a surprise when he found out how simple it could all be! Need some subjects? They'd be there later that day! Somewhat dazed or stupored. And whatever you didn't use, they liked it if you marked Type I or Type II for further processing. It paid to be helpful to one's fellow labs in adjacent departments.

Now, it was true that the subjects he received weren't hamsters, rats, lab rabbits, or monkeys. No, these were humans.

"Will this be a problem?" had asked Sadatomi, steely-glinted and suspicious.

The longer he spent in the Cradle, the more it made sense. And Kiriyu wouldn't get to play with the incredible drugs the Masters had so graciously provided if he didn't agree. "Not at all," had replied Kiriyu.

Anyway, wasn't it better if you started from the source? No point in trying to develop a solution to a problem involving humans by starting with little white mice.

And the Masters liked human flesh best, they'd been quite clear. Nothing else would satisfy them. Kiriyu knew that feeling of insatiation, and he could sympathise.

When he first saw them eat (from a safe distance, naturally), Kiriyu had formulated the hypothesis that it was the brain they preferred. Perhaps something about the brain and its precise composition, structure, what-have-you, made it the best meal for the Masters. Maybe it was just the satisfying way it oozed into their monstrous mouths when they gnashed their teeth into someone's skull. Who could say.

"A two-headed creature," Kiriyu had recommended. Or multiple-headed. It was easy enough to generate, it happened on occasion in nature anyway. Rather than make a human who would rebuild itself after being eaten, why not make more of what they truly wanted?

And by this point Kiriyu had had some practice with human experimentation using the workers who dissented halfway through their glorious work, workers who weren't so grateful to the Masters as Kiriyu was. Most of the creatures he'd reconstructed from these men - pieced together, stitched with animal parts, irradiated and re-fit into place - had survived. As for those that didn't, well, one had to walk before running.

"Extra heads just isn't the same," said Sadatomi. "Imagine eating steak and nothing else but steak for the rest of your life. At some point you do have to eat some vegetables. We don't want the Masters to get scurvy, do we?"

Certainly not! The Masters were alien, yes, but they were as gods, all-powerful, all-knowing, and so benevolent to share their arsenal of drugs and technology.

So, back to the drawing board. And back again. And back again, as Kiriyu kept going back and back. Every time, he hit a snag.

Kiriyu came to realise... he'd never do it without his golden goose, would he?

There was really only one person Kiriyu knew who'd somehow been able to regenerate health - or perceived health, anyway - from near death. Who had been able to restore himself in full. And Yamabiki's insane progress, his work on the chimera ... he'd made that thing live, even for a day. That, Kiriyu knew by now, was closer to true regeneration than Kiriyu alone would ever come.

But Yamabiki would love this place too much. These god-given technologies and treatments, these fascinating if vulgar experiments. He'd usurp it from Kiriyu like he'd stolen everything else! He'd overshadow Kiriyu without thinking! And then what would the Masters say and do? If they didn't need Kiriyu, they'd discard Kiriyu. 

Yamabiki would win again. Even if Kiriyu made him shout out his answers from a gurney like they'd chained the women, with his legs spread and waiting (and that image did give Kiriyu some gratification) - that would be Yamabiki winning. Yamabiki winning was Kiriyu losing.

Kiriyu _had_ to win. That was clear.

Now, it was a little unorthodox to request that administration dispatch a team for specific extraction of one particular subject. Kiriyu had had to establish a case for using Cradle resources, which was denied. Yamabiki was too well-known in his university, he remained there often late at night without going home for days. They couldn't just come in and snatch him, the optics could be bad. They couldn't station a team outside and wait, they didn't have staff available for that.

So Kiriyu took matters into his own hands with the members of the group of experimentees he'd been crafting. (Vice-Chief Hanajima was not pleased; less because of the experimentation and more because of the implication that Kiriyu was amassing his 'own personal army of mutants'. Administration had ruled, quite wisely, in Kiriyu's favour. No one would miss the defectors. And anyway, there was always an issue with anyone who had consumed the food from the canteen - they could fit nicely in neither Type I nor Type II for reasons Kiriyu wasn't given. It was efficient, it was recycling! Hanajima should have thanked Kiriyu.)

Enter Specimen 145, who had been given joint hypermobility and could disengage his joints to re-engage them later, to slip into small spaces, and specimen 11, who had the ability to control the expression of the melanocytes in his upper layers of skin. They _could_ wait. They'd wait all night if Kiriyu told them to, for they were wonderfully obedient, and specimens 222 and 750 could keep tabs on them to make sure they all returned, _with_ Yamabiki in tow, and --

"My, but you talk a lot."

Kiriyu paused in his narration. "Do you _mind?_ "

Yamabiki - whom Kiriyu had strapped down good and firm to the gurney, and riddled with a set of IV needles - looked up with a sardonic eye. "And ramble, too," he added. "It's all very disorganised. Much like your papers. Editing those was a nightmare! A photo might be a thousand words, but an abstract shouldn't be."

"I could have put you anywhere, you thankless brat!" said Kiriyu. "I brought you here for _my_ purposes, but I could have put you in Type I or Type II -"

"About that," said Yamabiki, thinking, "what precisely is it which differentiates the two? You never said."

Kiriyu glared. Surely Yamabiki could have worked it out. Kiriyu had seen to it that he'd been alert when he'd been brought to the Cradle - Kiriyu had wanted him paralysed with a little bit of specimen 50's nerve toxin but fully aware, horrified, knowledgeable about the horrors that existed. About the nightmare he'd found himself in. Did nothing seem to get Yamabiki's spirit down? Damn that brat for it. "Type I gets frozen," Kiriyu said. "I couldn't give you to them, of course, because I couldn't guarantee that you'd actually _freeze_. Who knows, maybe you've injected yourself with cockroach DNA."

At this, Yamabiki gave a sweet smile. Kiriyu felt like slapping it off his face. "I wouldn't put it past you," Kiriyu continued. "It was probably the first thing you tried, and _I want to watch you die,_ not survive beyond all odds. Better to give you to Type II - and I'm not convinced I shouldn't do that - where I could come and watch you expand til your clothes burst, mindbroken as you suck at the teat of the Masters! After all, it's that brain of yours that's given me such grief."

"So why don't you?" asked Yamabiki. Something about his tone and his keen gaze had Kiriyu already on edge. No, Kiriyu was simply overreacting. Yamabiki's tone played at control he didn't actually possess. Kiriyu was in control here!

Yamabiki squinted, thinking. "Could it possibly be that you _need_ my mind undrugged so I'm ready and capable to solve your Regenerator Project, because you haven't been able to do it on your own?"

" _No_ , you puffed-up peacock, because I'm making an elite task force of individuals with select skill sets!" blurted Kiriyu. "And I want to know what sort of attributes I can give you that you didn't already give yourself! You've already met Specimens 145, 11, 222, and 750 -"

"Oh, is that what you're calling them," murmured Yamabiki. He looked over at these members, who stood placidly at the side of the lab, ready and waiting like the mutant supersoldiers they were. There were always assistants in Kiriyu's lab, but they remained there at the side, ready for his orders. No specimen dared move without them. "I'm surprised they stuck around and came back to you. It doesn't look like you did any real genetic modifications at all. How did you manage to pacify them after giving them such... attributes?" 

Yamabiki eyed Specimen 24 in particular. 24 had no ears or mouth but had squid-enhanced translucent skin, speckled with blotchy chromatophores that dilated and contracted, like pox if it had a mind of its own. That didn't stop 24's organs from showing through. His face looked melted, gelatinous, and his eye was commonly at his chin. 24 looked miserable, and acted worse.

"They're more complacent when you addict them to a modified version of the Type II food drug," said Kiriyu. "I've made a number of them already. All you'll be is another number."

"Except that you won't be giving me the drug, will you," said Yamabiki. "Do you even know how it works with my unique DNA? Besides, if you really want me to be the jewel in your monstrous crown, you have to allow it a little lustre."

Kiriyu took the IV access port in hand and twisted it just enough to irritate the vein it was inside. Yamabiki's face twisted in a twinge of pain he failed to suppress, and Kiriyu allowed himself a moment of vindictive glee. "You'll be _nothing_ ," hissed Kiriyu. He leaned over to leer at Yamabiki properly. "Nothing more nor less than the rest of these monsters. Now say goodnight."

Then he inserted a little syringe of a clear liquid and depressed the plunger. Within a minute Yamabiki's eyelids had drooped, and his gaze unfocussed. Silence at last from his judgemental regard. It was only anaesthetic. Yamabiki would wake soon; Kiriyu needed him too badly.

Kiriyu breathed heavily, panting. He felt like smashing the lab - shoving all the implements off the counter, throwing things, shrieking - and barely he kept from it. Now and again he would look at Yamabiki's placid face and his fists would clench. He thought he'd pop a blood vessel. His fingers shook.

Slowly, very slowly, over aching long minutes, his composure returned to him.

Though Kiriyu hadn't made it explicitly clear during his long story - some parts he'd redacted to mull over in his head alone - Yamabiki had evidently heard enough to make the correct inference. He'd been brought here to do what Kiriyu couldn't.

Kiriyu hadn't brought him here out of some sadistic, vindictive pleasure. Kiriyu hadn't even thought about using the Cradle's technology to find out what Yamabiki'd done to his own DNA.

No, he'd brought him here to fix the Regenerator Project. Make it work. Yamabiki could do it, and Yamabiki would be delighted at the challenge. So Kiriyu could not, under any circumstance, let Yamabiki _know_ that.

He needed to play him behind the scenes, toy with him the way Yamabiki had toyed with Kiriyu, chipping away at his sanity, so that Kiriyu could milk Yamabiki slowly for the answers he craved.

And then at last when the Regenerator Project was done, Kiriyu could finally kill Yamabiki and rest for a decade.

Kiriyu made Specimen 50 fetch him a scalpel so he could get to work.

\--

According to the files they'd given Kiriyu upon hiring, the Regenerator Project had had a number of early successes, or what looked like them, until a single test subject from the A block had escaped some six years prior. An extensive network of video security footage had only been installed after that, to contain the A block and preserve some semblance of control. But A block was always so out of control, it was probably bound to happen eventually. Loud, raucous, messy. Even when you had to give them their pre-treatments and could strap them down to gurneys to keep them all still, the women shrieked like hyenas, the men howled like wolves. And they all grunted like pigs when they were at it, and they could be at it for hours and hours. You wouldn't even know if the pre-treatment had worked for a few months until the first inducements.

Kiriyu had never had the patience for such longitudinal studies. He much preferred the Type II rooms. Everything in its proper place, great big hairless hamsters hooked up to their water tubes. They didn't move, they hardly made a damn peep.

But if he'd had to pick, it would be his own lab, where he was alone with the happy obedient little assistants he'd made. These members made a group he had begun to call _Halcyon_ , both after the modified triazolam he'd given them to suppress their nervous systems during the experimentation process that rebuilt them the way Kiriyu wanted, and after the great calm that he found in doing the experimentations in the first place.

So too was Yamabiki calm. For two blessed weeks he spoke not one goddamn word, his eyes didn't shift once. For all his brilliance, now he was nothing more than meat flayed and spread wide on the table for Kiriyu.

Kiriyu began to understand why the Masters feasted the way they did.

This was why I got into this, thought Kiriyu to himself as he worked. He thought it over and over like a mental mantra. Years ago he'd done a stint in surgery, and that feeling of control, of mastery, brought him the most tranquility he'd ever had.

He mustered it up from time to time to settle his mind, because Yamabiki had also been correct in his guesses about Kiriyu's method.

Kiriyu hadn't done a single thing to the DNA of the Halcyon members to make them the way they were. It was all added limbs, graft surgery, transplantation. Skilled use of radiation like it was arc-welding.

Rejection, therefore, was common, though he'd been able to minimise it by manipulating the drugs from the brilliant, wonderful Masters. The Type II drug had been instrumental in coaxing certain components to be compelled to physically coalesce; the A block drug had been useful for tricking the parts of the nervous system into believing it all, using the new limbs, using the new senses. A month or two of encouraging the neurons to build more connections (and where that ability had already been maxed out, facilitating neurogenesis) and the specimen not only functioned, it _belonged_ to Kiriyu.

No, it wasn't genetics. It was _better_ than genetics! When you altered or cloned DNA, you still had to wait for a beast to grow; with Kiriyu's method, you could remake a beast after the fact. It was the better way. It was the _right_ way! And most importantly, it was Kiriyu's, and not Yamabiki's, way. One more way he'd win and Yamabiki would lose.

\--

When Yamabiki woke two weeks later, Kiriyu was ready. He'd had him dressed in a Halcyon member's uniform - stripped to the waist, plain black pants - and installed in the barracks. There, the rest of the Halcyon group spent their time when they were not off patrolling the Cradle on Izumi's orders. 

There had been some anomalies with the security system recently, and the cameras had picked up what looked like a dark-haired youth leaving the Type II chamber, flitting in and out of the cameras' range.

But Kiriyu had seen little use to send _all_ his men out - even if that youth were found, he was just one person - and moreover, it was another way he could reinforce the idea that Yamabiki was not some special member. Just another bunk in a cell, just another cell in a block. This would be his life now until Kiriyu had no more use for him.

Moreover, with three monstrous cellmates, Specimens 72, 105, and 13 - all of them big, ugly, and misshapen, though for all that they had their own gifts - if Yamabiki tried to escape he wouldn't make it very far, so Kiriyu could do away with the gurney he'd pilfered from A block. "Well, well," said Kiriyu. "I guess there's a little monster in all of us."

"You've made some changes," croaked Yamabiki, hoarse both from days of disuse, and from the attachments Kiriyu had made around his throat. He sat up on the bunk bed and groped around the stitches.

His slender neck now featured two flaps of skin like cephalopod fins, and from them extended two long appendages, somewhere between tail and tentacle with their thickness. Yamabiki's fingers reached to touch one. The tip twitched in return. "Prehensile," Yamabiki said, amused. He continued his exploration around his neck and reached the nape, groping down between his shoulder blades. For an idle grad student he really did have curiously well-developed triceps. "And there's - a slit at the back here..."

Kiriyu stood over him, arms folded. "I don't know what precisely you did to yourself, because the bloodwork is inconclusive." Annoyingly so. Even Yamabiki's blood had eluded him cleverly. It shifted in the petri dishes in a way Kiriyu'd never before seen. Kiriyu had had to shelve his other, more monstrous projects for Yamabiki. But there had been something like pig and squid DNA, so he'd engineered around that. "So congratulations. You've managed to hide yourself well enough, but that's left me no other option but to add a set of reproductive organs, so they can generate the right hormones to appease your other modifications and avoid rejection." He sneered. "I doubt they're _functional_ in the way you're probably thinking, but knowing you, you'll try them out anyway."

"You couldn't have done that with a modified pancreas?" said Yamabiki.

Kiriyu... had not thought of that. He glared. "Yes, well, an added humiliation for you is icing on the cake for me," he lied, "so enjoy having your sow neck fucked." If it even _was_ humiliation! Yamabiki had no shame! Well, Kiriyu could pretend. "Now, the Cradle expended valuable resources to bring you here for my purposes; making you useful was part of the deliverables. Besides, you've already produced one chimera, so really, what's another?"

"I see," said Yamabiki. He looked over at his cellmates; two were asleep, one was busying himself by picking at a scab. "Don't you know that a proper way to go about all this would be genetic manipulation?"

"This is the origin of life," said Kiriyu. He reached into his pocket.

"The origin of laziness, maybe," drawled Yamabiki, ignoring Kiriyu's glare, "I wouldn't - _ow!!_ " His muscles seized as he twitched, and he twisted to massage his neck. "What's _that?_ "

"Electric shock," said Kiriyu, "controlled by me." He took out the little remote from his pocket and pushed the control again just to watch Yamabiki squirm. And squirm he did, falling back on his bed and writhing, as the new skin Kiriyu had installed around Yamabiki's throat contracted. Kiriyu stood above him, gazing in wonder. It almost felt like he was strangling Yamabiki himself... but he had to remind himself to ease off on the shock. As fun as it was, it was a weapon to be used sparingly. "You'll remember that a squid's chromatophores and iridophores respond to direct electric stimulation," he said, "and now you've got lots of them. I couldn't allow you so much leeway even with a leash, you have too much a habit of talking back. You talk out of turn again, I won't be afraid to punish you."

Yamabiki propped himself up on shaky elbows. "You _brought me here_ because you wanted to know what I have to say," he said.

"I brought you here to _lose_ ," hissed Kiriyu. He depressed the button.

Yamabiki's pretty mouth twisted in a grimace and he stiffened, twitching. "Don't worry," said Kiriyu, though he wasn't even certain Yamabiki could hear him, "it won't be all stick. Sometimes carrot, if you're nice enough."

He left, and when he returned to his lab he stuck a little piece of tape on the remote to keep the button depressed. His original goal had been to go about his day and at some point _conveniently remember_ about the remote.

But in fact he couldn't get it out of his mind and looked over periodically, distracted from his work by his fantasies of Yamabiki in his quarters, jerking in misery.

It took Yamabiki another hour after Kiriyu turned off the control to fully rouse - during which time Specimen 105 woke and began emitting his usual low, constant drone - and when Yamabiki did, Kiriyu felt a little better prepared for him. "So," said Yamabiki. "Are you going to tell me about the Regenerator Project you mentioned, or are you going to amuse yourself by shocking me?"

Kiriyu depressed the remote again just to watch Yamabiki thrash. "I can do both," he said. Specimen 105's drone got louder, more plaintive, and Kiriyu turned the voltage up to drown it out.

"Does - does that - mean - in lieu - of the drugs," Yamabiki spat out, "you're - thinking - con- con-ditioning?"

Kiriyu took his finger off the remote immediately. " _No,_ " he said.

That _had_ been his plan. But how dare Yamabiki have seen through it so easily. Knowing it was conditioning, it wouldn't be effective. Like the food in the canteen. Drugged, and Kiriyu knew about it, which was why he wasn't some slavish devotee to the Masters. (He could leave this place anytime he liked! He simply wasn't done with his work yet.) And it didn't work on all employees - those that dissented and became Halcyon fodder could attest to that.

Kiriyu would have to think of other, more creative punishments. He did hand Yamabiki a folder of some selected material - more like threw it at him - but made a big show of it being a great favour.

The more Yamabiki flipped through, the more attentive and engrossed he became, the more he ignored Kiriyu's presence at all. Kiriyu's thumb twitched over the remote again but the thought of Yamabiki discovering all his plans stayed his hand. Instead he spoke. "The rejection rate in utero for potential regenerators is too high."

"You've been removing genetic material, manipulating it like you've done to me and the other Halcyon group members, then put it back in to incubate," said Yamabiki. "Isn't that inefficient? Why not control the genetics of a fertilized embryo, and grow it in a dish long enough to be sustainable, then implant?" He tapped his chin with one long tentacle again as he thought, and then as he hit on an idea, he pointed it like a triumphant index finger and gleamed. "On second thought, I forgot how much you dislike tinkering with genes and expressions. It's the trickier way. Not for everyone, I imagine."

Patronising aside, Kiriyu was glad to correct him. "Actually," he said, "that was the first thing _I_ had tried. It doesn't work. It rejects."

"Well, so should these extra limbs," said Yamabiki, gesturing to his new tentacles, "but you made _them_ work in days. Why can't you apply whatever glue you used here?"

An interesting idea, thought Kiriyu.

\--

He returned to his lab and, under the quiet supervision of Specimens 94, 1003, and 645, prepared Type II hormone the same way he'd prepare it for any of the Halcyon members. Testing came later that day, when instead of using it to coax a limb where it shouldn't be, he used it on the subjects before and during genetic implantation, just to see what would happen.

He got shockingly viable results in a _day_. It was the first success Kiriyu had had in months, and with pride he didn't wholly feel, he said as much in his report to Chief Izumi and his underling Hanajima.

But his report proved hasty. The first few trials didn't exactly spell long-term viability for the test subjects. Over the next week, they kept haemorrhaging, and that was a problem.

Yamabiki had sabotaged this, somehow.

Irate, Kiriyu returned to Yamabiki's cell in the barracks. Yamabiki had one tentacle looped around the bedframe and the other turning pages in the files. "If you want me to really fix it," said Yamabiki, "I think it'd be best for me to know exactly what we're working with, don't you?"

He was defiant, daring Kiriyu to press the remote. He preened like he wanted it, the spliced fins on his neck flaring out. So Kiriyu did what Yamabiki would not expect: he took him on a walk through A block to see the subjects himself.

\--

In Kiriyu's defence, any lack of progress on the Regenerator Project was not because he prioritised creating new members of the Halcyon Group - although, it was worthwhile to note (and Kiriyu did, and often) that such activities were also not an entirely fruitless endeavour. Every time he managed to get a would-be escapee or truant or dissident worker under the knife, it taught Kiriyu something new about rejection and how the body worked with it. It was an inexpert science. Really, less a science than an art! And art took time to master.

This was an argument Kiriyu had well-rehearsed, because he was often giving it to Chief Izumi or Vice-chief Hanajima. Izumi had failed to find that dark-haired youth, but Kiriyu needed the Halcyon members in the lab, in the barracks, reminding Yamabiki of his place.

The truth was, Kiriyu actively sought to minimise the time he spent in A block. He took what samples he needed, he performed what extractions were necessary, he left. If that made him particularly abrasive with some of the subjects, well, that was a surgeon for you. Go in, get the job done, get out, and worry about the bruising later. Staying any longer than necessary irritated him.

Yamabiki, meanwhile, seemed to want to stop and look and ask about everything. "This is all so fascinating," he murmured, mostly to himself. Kiriyu did his best to ignore him and walk stolidly ahead. "I wish you'd given me more eyes!"

The better to watch Kiriyu with, no doubt. No, thank you. "This isn't a fun spin around the block for _exercise_ ," he snapped. He grabbed Yamabiki by the two tentacles and tugged hard like he was bringing him to heel. Yamabiki gave a yelp and jerked forward, but the stitches didn't tear. That was progress.

More than one of the subjects had noticed them. " _Cock!_ Another!" screamed one girl. "Oooh, nice big ones, is those," screamed another. Yes, thought Kiriyu dryly, and he can thank _me_ for it.

"I don't think they do what you want them to," said Yamabiki.

"Don't _talk_ to them," snapped Kiriyu. "Anyway, they can't hear you."

The second girl had reached out a scrawny arm through the bars, and groped fruitlessly at the air with long clawed nails. "C'mon here and let's see!" she cajoled. "I want one tooooo. It isn't fair, it isn't fair!"

"They clearly can," said Yamabiki. "Oh - hm, maybe not these two."

For Yamabiki had dragged his feet to the point of stopping by one of the girls' cells, currently visited by one of the male specimens. The only one who was, in fact. The girl was caterwauling beneath a dark-haired man. He was huffing and panting with exertion but far more slender than the usual men they'd dosed up with the drug. Kiriyu made a mental note to increase the dosage on the male specimens for A block.

"Interesting," said Yamabiki. "There must be some significant chafing."

"There's a drug for that," said Kiriyu.

"Really! What about the rate of insemination - of ovulation -"

"There's drugs for that, too," said Kiriyu.

"How curious," murmured Yamabiki. "Then the rate of generation for a new genetic crowd must be -" He fixed Kiriyu with a sharp glare. "How old are the girls when you take them?"

"The _subjects_ ," said Kiriyu, "are old enough."

"Is that so," said Yamabiki, his tone unconvinced and somewhat mulish. "I thought surely you'd've found a way around that no doubt _pesky_ puberty onset."

Kiriyu rolled his eyes. "They did try it, years back. No dice."

"See, these are the questions I wouldn't have to ask if you'd simply given me the full folder of regenerator research," said Yamabiki. "I _know_ you held some information back."

Kiriyu had had enough. "Come _on_." He took hold of the tentacle again, pulling until Yamabiki shuffled along enough to give slack in the limbs.

For a curious minute Yamabiki said nothing - he was _too_ quiet - until Kiriyu felt a strange contraction on the flesh he had a firm hold of. The tip of the tentacles curled around Kiriyu's wrist, loosely, clasping.

"I wondered how powerful the muscles had become," said Yamabiki in obvious delight. He squeezed them a little harder around Kiriyu. "How marvellous!"

It was impossibly hot in this wing. Yamabiki's appendages curling around him weren't helping. Kiriyu shook them off, or tried to. "Let go," he said.

"Just want to make sure you're still there. I don't want you to leave me behind."

Kiriyu did not buy Yamabiki's saccharine tone. "That's _not_ what I made them for," he said, flushing. He grabbed the end of the tentacle with his other hand and squeezed, digging his nails in until Yamabiki's face contorted, then squeezed a little harder to make his point.

"Very well," groaned Yamabiki.

"And I didn't bring you down here to ogle at the experiments, either," added Kiriyu. He had stopped them in front of Specimen 1103, who had shown the most promise for grafting manipulations in utero and who had yet to die. "You're here for a job. You're here because -"

"Because you need me to fix your mistakes and make you a regenerator," supplied Yamabiki. 

"No!" spat Kiriyu. "I need - an extra set of hands, that's all."

"And two tentacles," added Yamabiki, charmingly brushing the tip of one across the back of Kiriyu's hand.

Kiriyu swatted it away. "If you provide any assistance it's because time is of the essence, there are people that need feeding, and I'm waiting for test results to come back before I can figure out what other monstrosities to make you," he lied. "But if you have ideas, I could be lenient."

"Well, then," said Yamabiki. He thought about it, folding his arms, and using the tentacle to tap his chin. It was absurd. "I do think you should use the vial with the higher ratio of the drug. I think it'll take a little better."

Kiriyu goggled. This couldn't have taken him more than ten seconds to decide - Yamabiki had made no tests on 1103, he had hardly looked at her state, despite professing to need information. "You dragged me all the way down here to make a _snap decision?_ "

"Why, dear father-in-law," said Yamabiki, and the tentacles squirmed playfully in Kiriyu's hand, "I think you'll find _you_ dragged _me_."

Kiriyu pulled and dragged him all the way back to the barracks just to be one step ahead of him, to watch Yamabiki scramble to keep up for a change. And if it gave him a sadistic delight to use the tentacles to slingshot Yamabiki extra hard into his cell, none of the other specimens were surprised, or empathetic, and none of them came to Yamabiki's rescue.

\--

Later that day came what Kiriyu had been dreading for weeks: a call for him announced over the intercom, to present himself to Chief Izumi's office at once. 

The quickest way was through the barracks. None of the Halcyon group made eye contact with him as he passed through, but Yamabiki did. When Kiriyu met his gaze with what he hoped was defiance, Yamabiki grinned wide.

"I've done everything I was supposed to," snapped Kiriyu.

"Did I say you were in trouble?" asked Yamabiki.

It was a long walk to the Chief's office through the administrative wing without any one of the Halcyon Group by his side. It didn't get better at the look of Izumi - always stoic and emotionless - and Hanajima - glaring.

"I'll make this brief," said Izumi, "so that you can get back to your work. Which - I don't think I need to remind you, time is of the essence."

Kiriyu began, "The Regenerator Project -"

"- is far too slow-going," said Izumi.

"But you've heard of the results today!" said Kiriyu. "I sent you my notes and conclusions!" Yamabiki's notes and conclusions. But they hadn't approved Kiriyu's future work proposal. "It's been less than eight hours since implantation, you can't say 1103 is a failure _yet!_ "

"Yes," said Hanajima, "and this meeting is in spite of them, not because of them! You've been spending too long in that lab of yours cooped up making yourself a bunch of mutants!"

Izumi held up a single hand, and Hanajima fell silent. "I will remind you of our primary focus, Dr Kiriyu," said Izumi.

"The Halcyon group preserves _order_ ," reminded Kiriyu. "Order which was lost after the loss of that escaped test subject from group A, before my time. The one who might have had the last clues to the regeneration project nesting inside her."

Izumi closed his eyes, sighed, and reopened them. It was clear he was growing sick and tired of hearing this excuse. Kiriyu would have to prepare a better one. "I expect a breakthrough on the regeneration project by the end of the month," said Izumi. "That was the deal. Why we allowed you your former research assistant."

That's right, thought Kiriyu, he's my _assistant_. He works _under_ me.

"Of course," said Kiriyu aloud. "I _will_ produce the results you've been looking for."

He returned to Yamabiki - well, to the lab! Yamabiki was simply on his way! "We have to speed things up," he announced.

"If you allowed me in the lab," said Yamabiki, "I already have some ideas." And this time Kiriyu was too beleaguered to deny it.

\--

Yamabiki spent the next few days in the lab exclusively. When Kiriyu needed sleep, he'd chain Yamabiki to the desk or knot his tentacles around a table leg, but it seemed like Yamabiki himself never slept, or if he was doing it, he did it while Kiriyu wasn't watching. I'm the one who needs extra eyes, thought Kiriyu, sullen and bitter. The productivity of youth, that was all. In any case, it made him happy there were always five or six members of the Halcyon group around, standing faithful guard. They monitored Yamabiki like hawks, and Kiriyu hadn't even given them the sight for that.

All the nights of hard work paid off, however, when Kiriyu woke one morning to discover that Yamabiki had built a chimeric fruit fly using lizard DNA. He ripped off a wing, and it regrew the wing in under a minute.

"How?" gasped Kiriyu.

"Oh, a little bit of this, a little bit of that. Squid DNA combined with lizard, spliced together on a damaged genome. And the Type II drug had to be modified for a higher adhesion during implantation. Repeat with an embryo, and you should have something that regenerates its limbs. That said, I'd really want to do more testing -"

"That's fine!" blurted Kiriyu, shocked enough not to need his coffee. "I'll take it from here."

\--

Of course, it worked. Something Yamabiki had done had enabled this particular embryo to succeed in implantation without killing the A block subject. Four days later, they had a viable incubator with a partial regenerator inside her. It was outstanding. It was miraculous. It wasn't Kiriyu who'd done it.

"So," said Yamabiki when Kiriyu shared the news, "will you share more information now? Who is it that needs feeding so desperately? I can't solve your project if you keep me in the dark like this."

"It's _my_ project to solve, not yours," said Kiriyu.

This was quickly becoming a refrain, and ordinarily Yamabiki ignored it like the petulant brat he was. Perhaps it was the lack of sleep. Perhaps it was the fact that back in the university lab, when he pulled three allnighters in a row, he'd follow his successes up with annoying sex (usually also in the university lab). Withdrawal from both. But whatever it was, this time he engaged. "Oh, really!" Yamabiki crowed. "Then why haven't you solved it? Why'd you need to bring me in? Why haven't you had any successes until _I_ got here, hmm?"

Kiriyu turned away to hide his anger - you couldn't let people know they were getting to you - but Yamabiki followed. "Sometimes I think I should hold back, too. Even if I know the answer, I don't see why I should volunteer it. Teach you something of a lesson! You know, while you're out conducting the implantation testing and monitoring - which, by the way, could be automated by some monitoring system! - I've been talking to a few of the others. In fact, Satoshi -"

"Who the hell is Satoshi?" snapped Kiriyu. That dark-haired youth Izumi kept worrying about?

Yamabiki blinked. "I suppose you only know him as Specimen 354," he said coldly.

Specimen 354, who had eagle claws for hands and massive strength to match. He didn't look like a Satoshi, he looked like a _specimen_. "And what has Specimen 354 been saying?" asked Kiriyu.

"That if you'd wanted to make me a member of the Halcyon group, you would have done it already. You would have given me something that would have made me more useful in patrolling - apparently that's what you make them do! - or capturing this fellow who's been seen around the complex - he's managed to give them all the slip, oddly enough -"

"I only didn't do that because your own DNA was so confusingly all over the place that pig and squid was the only thing that'd take!" Kiriyu exclaimed. And Kiriyu had been holding off on doing anything that could jeopardise Yamabiki's mind. But if Yamabiki was only going to get in his face about it, why even bother keeping _that_ around? If Yamabiki wouldn't help him, then he had no use, did he? No use at all, and Kiriyu could watch him burn at last.

At long last he could have Yamabiki gone with a single injection and he'd have a front row seat!

And Yamabiki had already finished the Regenerator Project.

"Right," said Yamabiki, "my DNA, which was yet another puzzle you just couldn't figure out without my help, I take it."

Kiriyu shoved him in the shoulder. "I don't need you for anything!" he shouted.

"I don't think you could make a functional chimeric regenerator if you _tried_ ," Yamabiki shouted back, "because you _are_ trying, and all you're doing is failing!"

Kiriyu shrieked in irrepressible rage. He grabbed the remote off the desk where it lay and he pressed it again and again until Yamabiki shuddered under the voltage. But somehow he'd managed to cope with it, or minimise the effects, because though his legs shook with the force of it, he remained standing, and he looked up at Kiriyu with loathing.

"You really are a cockroach," said Kiriyu. "I didn't want to have to do this. but for the record, you've _made_ me."

"Y-you've already done - all you can to me," managed Yamabiki, pointing to his disfigurements. "You're a path-pathetic scientist, incapable of doing anything more."

"No," said Kiriyu, "there's one thing left. Your mind was all I cared about -" still something of a lie, he had so longed to try out Yamabiki's disfigurements, run his hands along that which he made, which Yamabiki kept suggesting wasn't interesting enough because it didn't play with genetics - "and if you plan on withholding it, then I don't see what use to keep you around."

"You can't kill me," said Yamabiki. "You _won't_ kill me."

No, perhaps not. Perhaps there were things worse than death. Shame, torture. Breaking. Failure. And death, with Yamabiki, was never guaranteed. But the drugs of the Masters were.

Kiriyu grabbed an automatic syringe injector of the A block drug and hit the remote control to shock Yamabiki still enough so he was too distracted to concentrate. Yamabiki lifted a hand that trembled so badly it couldn't fend Kiriyu off at all. "I don't need to kill you," said Kiriyu. "And I see you've been getting on so _well_ with your cellmates! So _enjoy_."

He pushed the syringe in and squeezed the trigger to depress the plunger, and it was all over in less than three seconds.

It took less than twenty seconds for it to take in Yamabiki. "What's," he panted. His pupils dilated like a cat as he looked at Kiriyu. He parted his lips in a snarl - that quickly softened to open lust.

Kiriyu slapped him across the face, but Yamabiki was already gone. His body whipped to the side with the force of it but in a flash he'd straightened as best he could, his cock so hard it tented his pants and bowed him. Yamabiki made a strangled noise and shuffled forward.

"You all," shouted Kiriyu to the other members of the Halcyon group that guarded the lab. "Take care of this." Specimen 25 was closest, standing by the wall, cringing and slouching to make himself less visible, with an apprehensive look on his gorilla-like scarred face. "That's an _order_ ," Kiriyu spat. "You _will_ obey me!"

Specimen 25 dragged his feet walking.

Yamabiki leapt on him and tackled him to the ground, and Kiriyu walked out of the lab to the sounds of ripping clothing and a groan.

Kiriyu should have left. But the lab had a one-way mirror and antechamber for this reason. After all, one must be scientific and objective! It was for science. It was for progress. It was for Kiriyu to sit and relax and study whether there was anything left of Yamabiki, to make sure he was just an empty shell.

This was winning. Yamabiki had leapt on Specimen 25 with gusto and had torn his clothing. Specimen 25, for his own sake, was not exactly stopping him - Specimen 25 had been given a gorilla's strength as well as its facial features, and his brow ridge frowned in concentration as his large nostrils flared. Yamabiki wriggled out of Specimen 25's grasp, desperate to fuck him.

Specimen 25 wasn't reacting fast enough for Kiriyu's liking, and Kiriyu didn't like Yamabiki on top, either. He intervened with the remote control.

The fins around Yamabiki’s neck constricted, and he jolted, losing control long enough that Specimen 25 could grab him by the thighs with massive, hairy hands and pushed him forward onto his cock.

Yamabiki had twisted out of his own clothing as best he could given his disfigurements around his neck. But for the rest of him, it was human, human, human - pale and scrawny in comparison to Specimen 25. Yamabiki too was erect - not even that large, thought Kiriyu, gazing at it. No idea what all his paramours kept coming to him for in the lab. Or Kiriyu's own daughter! Yamabiki had practically flaunted his exploits. But here was Yamabiki now, mounting the gorilla man and fucking himself so hard he might bleed. Yamabiki didn't seem to care.

Kiriyu probably should have given the gorilla man an injection as well. Ah, well. That was one for the Future Work and Discussion section of the paper.

Yamabiki... was _gone_. Such a shame about that mind, that brilliant mind. Reduced to rutting like an animal. There was a howl, and the gorilla man's chest was smeared with come - boring, white, human come; Yamabiki couldn't even manage something interesting with his DNA tinkering! - as Yamabiki threw his head back, shrieking like one of the A block dogs.

Oh - there came a pained shout from the gorilla man beneath him. Yamabiki kept fucking himself, already hard again for another, but the gorilla man had pushed him off. It looked like his cock was bent in a way that seemed unfortunate. Unnatural, and not in the fun way.

Kiriyu pushed the button for the intercom to the lab and spoke directly into the microphone. "Now the rest of you," he instructed. "Restrain him by any means necessary. Satisfy him."

They didn't move, watching instead the monstrous tableau of the gorilla man and his great broken cock, crab-walking backwards to get away from Yamabiki, who menaced forward on hands and knees. The tentacles whipped around him, seeking.

"That is an _order!_ " Kiriyu screeched.

Specimen 47 was next. A wolf's cock as well as its amazing sense of scent. Pack mentality to protect his fellow specimen must have overridden the fear. Yamabiki spotted him and attacked; the wolf was a loud whiner.

From then on, they all took turns, but Yamabiki's lust was unreal, unsatisfiable. He draped himself over two of the Specimens, fucked himself on another, and wrapped a firm hold with his limbs - all of them, Kiriyu's tentacles included - on others. It was probably better for the Halcyon members, too. Less dangerous as a group effort. Distracted like this, Yamabiki had somewhat forgotten about his own erection and didn't seek to satisfy it with, say, Specimen 161 (who was the size of a monkey and who could have laid in Yamabiki's lap while others worked on him). He took two great monstrous cocks - one in his ass, one in the slit in his upper back between his shoulder blades, where Kiriyu had put the sow's womb. At this, Kiriyu took greater note, sitting straight up in his chair in interest on the other side of the one-way mirror.

So it _did_ work. Kiriyu grinned to himself, proud. Yamabiki's mouth lay open as he hung there, suspended between two monsters, a monster himself, as he used the tentacles Kiriyu had given him either to pull himself off or to drag more of the Halcyon group closer. Frankenstein would have wept.

Kiriyu shouldn't have been that hard, looking at Yamabiki's red drooling mouth. At his tentacles, one wrapped around himself, one reaching for someone else.

But as they said, there's a little monster in all of us!

And no one would know.

Below the table Kiriyu furtively unzipped. His cock practically burst forward, just as Yamabiki descended on someone else. He palmed himself, watching as Yamabiki spilled, watching as the specimen behind him thrust hard into his upper back, coming with the amount a shark would give. He wondered if that would take - maybe Yamabiki could spend the rest of his days in A block as a viable reproductor himself. A little unorthodox, but maybe it was Yamabiki's crazy, wild DNA that would give them that total regenerator they so badly needed.

Kiriyu stroked himself faster. Yamabiki was always saying he should be cleverer about his attention to detail, genetically! Suppose this bred him. Suppose they could hook him up or have him clapped in stocks, so that they could line up men and monsters alike to fuck him in the shoulders like that. Spilling come down his back when it overflowed, dripping down to his narrow waist. Suppose the kin were viable, suppose it got them one step closer to a functional regenerating prototype, suppose they congratulated Kiriyu then for singlehandedly solving the project, his name in lights and Yamabiki in the stocks, Kiriyu could go home and fuck his golden goose 'til it laid his golden eggs!

Kiriyu came so hard he saw stars, and more importantly his name amid them.

\--

A few days later he was awoken during the night by an urgent call into Izumi's office.

"What? What's the hurry?" Kiriyu asked.

"Your partial regenerator died about an hour ago," said Hanajima.

"But not the incubator?"

"Specimen 1103 is in stable, but serious condition," said Izumi. He stood and slammed his hand on the desk. "We are limited by the amount of subjects - you can't keep killing them off!"

"With due respect, Chief," said Kiriyu, "we _can_. We have enough resources and funds outside for retrieval for another 200 subjects, and we have more than enough of the Halcyon group to act as retrieval specialists." With some to remain back to fuck Yamabiki into submission.

"We need the Halcyon group to find the intruder!" said Izumi. "If he is who I think he is, I _cannot_ let him come back here and be discovered. Do you understand me?"

Kiriyu knew that tone of voice well. He bowed instead of defending himself further. "Yes, Chief Izumi," he said. "I will fix this."

"See that you do," snapped Izumi. "Oh - and one more thing. Did you forget cameras were installed not only in A block but also in the research labs? All parts of them." Kiriyu fought a blush and failed. "Just a consideration."

\--

Kiriyu hated himself a little bit for having succumbed, but it had soon become a nightly ritual to watch Yamabiki at play. There were so many members of the Halcyon group, too, you could rotate them out. Yamabiki never seemed to tire, but just in case Kiriyu had instructed one of the members to give him follow-up injections.

What was it he'd told Yamabiki only a short time ago? There's a drug for that. Yamabiki didn't chafe or wane or stop for anything and he had yet to work his way through the entire Halcyon group. Kiriyu couldn't wait to see what he would make of Specimen 610, the invisible man.

But without Yamabiki, Kiriyu was really screwed. Yamabiki was out of commission because of the drug, probably permanently; it fell to Kiriyu to make the lizard DNA work again in utero.

Kiriyu laboured for two days before giving up on Yamabiki's technique - it only ever seemed to work for Yamabiki - and instead applied the concepts he'd thought would best work with his own techniques, by using a more developed specimen and treating it as a very small member of the Halcyon group. That didn't work either. 

In frustration, Kiriyu broke and went back to Yamabiki's papers on the chimera he'd made some time ago. The final product was mostly lizard, less squid, with some chimeric human DNA, and the resultant offspring would perhaps be human enough to be edible by the Masters.

He did succeed in getting it to regenerate a limb, though it did so on the area that had been sourced from the corpse of the creature Yamabiki had created. This gnawed at Kiriyu more than a little bit.

Kiriyu wound up so busy with work he hardly even noticed Yamabiki - from time to time, he'd reward himself with a look over to watch as Yamabiki fucked himself on one of the members of the Halcyon group. The invisible man had come and gone and Kiriyu had missed it. There was a twinge Kiriyu felt between his legs that he forced himself to ignore. He wouldn't succumb again. He wouldn't let Yamabiki win even while he was losing.

Have fun with your brothers, Kiriyu thought, and returned to his lonely work in A block.

\-- 

Kiriyu's regenerator implanted successfully in the A block incubator he'd selected and remained stable for two days. On the third day he returned to Chief Izumi with updated progress. 

"We expected better from you," said Izumi.

"I _have_ been busy," said Kiriyu, "involved in discipline and order preservation. As you know."

Hanajima was unconvinced; Izumi, however, seemed placated. "Very well," he said. "Start genetic trials of the chimera."

"Genetic?" Kiriyu knew his disappointment registered and didn't care. "They would be ready faster if we hand-crafted them - I would gladly make the time -"

"You took three days just to make _one_ ," said Hanajima. "And that one may not remain viable. The previous ones haven't been."

"It won't yield enough," added Izumi. "Didn't you send me those estimates yourself?"

Kiriyu blinked. "Yes," he said, "of course."

He had not sent anything to Izumi besides the recent information about his latest partial regenerator being successfully incubated.

"Genetic testing and mass production is the only way we can make this work with the Masters," added Izumi. His expression darkened. "Remember, they are legion. And their hunger is vast. But you've done well, Dr Kiriyu. We'll prepare a new pupa to be hatched."

Hanajima seemed surprised. "Sir - that's perhaps a little ambitious - if that new Master cannot have enough food it will starve -"

Izumi held up a hand. "By the time it's ready, I'm sure Dr Kiriyu's partial regenerator will be ready as well. We'll want to roll out testing. And if it doesn't have enough food with the regenerator ... I'm sure Dr Kiriyu will find _some_ way to feed it." Izumi turned to Kiriyu and fixed him with a steely glare. "Won't you, Dr Kiriyu?"

\--

So Kiriyu returned to his lab deep in thought. He had seen the Masters operate a few times before - the heedless, frenzied way they ate. He had no doubts about what Izumi had intended: make the regenerator viable enough for dinner, or _you'll_ be dinner.

An idle threat, it _had_ to be! Kiriyu had seen some successes in his time at the Cradle and not all of them were in the Halcyon group, but the Halcyon group alone had been _massively_ successful. Izumi would go after one of his underlings. The janitors, the cooks, anyone expendable. Kiriyu wasn't expendable! This had to be a trick. It had to be. Some kind of psychological manipulation to make him work faster, work better. More effectively. Threaten him into it. After all, conditioning via the food the workers ate didn't work on Kiriyu.

Kiriyu _didn't_ like being manipulated any more than he liked being bested. He had to admit this tactic might work to produce results _faster_ , but no guarantee it'd produce results as viable or as long-lasting, and wasn't that Izumi's end goal, anyway?

Kiriyu was thinking so hard and angrily he didn't notice the pinch on the back of his neck until too late. His eyes drooped and he fell face-forward into his paperwork.

\--

When he awoke, he was still in the swivel chair, tied to it with straps. Someone was speaking. He made very sure to keep still and pretend like he was still drugged. "- which is when I came here," he heard. "I wasn't a fan of hiding in A block as long as I did, I'm not much of an actor."

"Hmm, yes, I can understand. I suppose it was only a matter of time." That was Yamabiki's voice. The first one - Kiriyu had no clue. Some underling, no doubt. "Well, we've fully swapped stories, then. How about plans of action? What's your next move?"

A pause. "You did cut the cameras, didn't you?" 

"Ah, I managed to cut the audio, but not the video. If I'd done that they would know to come immediately."

"I thought you said the other members of the group were friendly to you."

"Most are, yes. Now, these ten specimens here, well... Some are a bit more feral than others, I've found. Harder to convince."

"I thought _you_ were feral when I first passed by and saw you," said the unknown voice.

Yamabiki made a soft sigh. "You know, I probably was," he said. "That A block drug _does_ work. I don't think he realised it might not work as effectively on me. The early results were close enough that he didn't pay much attention this last little while." Kiriyu kept his face neutral. How dare Yamabiki imply he didn't follow through! The Regenerator Project simply took more of his concentration, and Yamabiki wasn't important enough!

"It's really a shame," Yamabiki continued, "he had all that time to discover what extra additions I'd had to make to my DNA after I woke up in that radiation chamber. Wow, that really seems like forever ago! Anyway, I don't think he ever truly figured any of it out, which meant he kept giving me doses which wore off in a fraction of the time. And some of the kinder Halcyon members would miss injections, and I could organise a little work myself when he wasn't looking, like the falsified results I sent his higher-ups."

"Then they're not all monsters... What about the others? In A block?"

"Them, I don't know," said Yamabiki. "Probably time and withdrawal would do the trick. Depends how much of the food they ate. It has a tendency to make people agreeable to this sort of work. Even devotional! Why, just look at _him_. For the most part he didn’t tinker with them the way he has with the Halcyon members, or the way I did with myself. Or the way he did with the partial regenerator he tried to make." Another pause. "Well. I think I did most of the work, tell you the truth."

"You didn't have much choice," said the unknown voice in a reasonable tone.

"No," admitted Yamabiki, "I probably would have done more if he'd let me. But he's kind of a control freak. Aren't you, dear father-in-law?"

Kiriyu didn't move.

"I know you're awake," said Yamabiki. Kiriyu peeked an eye open to find Yamabiki - sane of mind and whole, annoyingly whole - smiling down at him. Beside him was a young dark-haired man Kiriyu didn't recognise dressed in a janitor's uniform. He could have been an underling, Kiriyu didn't know everybody's names and faces... but some suspicion told Kiriyu he was the dangerous young man Izumi feared so deeply, the one the Halcyon group hadn't been able to catch.

Because Kiriyu kept pulling some of them back to fuck Yamabiki, or to remind Yamabiki he was just another monster. This was all Yamabiki's fault!

Ten of the Halcyon group stood at the wall. Kiriyu hardly recognised them - they looked savage and murderous. Had Yamabiki given them something? But no... that was Specimen 72, as clear of mind as he ever got, which wasn't much. And Specimen 104, too. 

Well, good. The more violent ones would be instrumental in Kiriyu's regaining control of this situation.

Kiriyu gritted his teeth and tried to break free of his bonds. The anger helped, but Yamabiki put a quelling hand on his shoulder. "That's enough of that," he said, patronising, "or I'd have to sic my new friend on you, too, and he packs a mean punch. This is Natsune, by the way. He's that total regenerator you've always craved."

The dark-haired young man - Natsune - glared. Kiriyu returned it. _How dare you exist_.

"I wanted you to be able to see him just so you could know it was possible," added Yamabiki.

"And I'm sure," added Natsune, "the added taunt that he isn't the one who did it has nothing to do with any of that."

"I'm sure I'd never be so cruel," said Yamabiki.

"Then let me loose," snarled Kiriyu, twisting in the chair. "If you don't plan to do anything so cruel. What do you even plan to do here? Take over my lab? Take my research, finish my research?" Do what Kiriyu couldn't? Show him up one last time?

"What point is there in finishing your research when it stands in front of you?" asked Yamabiki. "Meanwhile, those Masters I've heard mention of ... that's one big curiosity."

"And I plan to kill those who are responsible for all this," said Natsune, "so it so happens our plans align." He turned to the door and began to leave, Yamabiki in tow.

"You're going to leave me here, are you?" asked Kiriyu. "All alone, tied up?" He grinned, wild. "I knew you didn't have the courage to do what I did to you. To end you, or try to. At least I win _that!_ "

Yamabiki paused. "Go on," he said to Natsune. "I'll just be a moment."

He wouldn't, knew Kiriyu. He wouldn't dare.

Yamabiki returned to Kiriyu with one of the syringes prepared for A block.

Kiriyu shrank in his bonds but couldn't wiggle out of them fast enough. "I meant, when I tried to kill you," said Kiriyu. "N-not - that." Because Kiriyu had done that, too, the unholy beauty of Yamabiki fucking himself on monsters etched behind Kiriyu's eyelids. "I'm the one who put you into that radiation chamber. I made you everything you are!"

"Is that how you see it," said Yamabiki. He studied the innocent little syringe. "It wasn't cockroach, by the way. It was tardigrade DNA," he said. "That was probably what you were missing from your project all along. I experimented on myself until I could lop these off and grow them back." He pointed, grinning, to the tentacles. "As you can see, works pretty well. _My_ DNA made your partial regenerator."

"Untie me!" screamed Kiriyu. "That's an _order!_ " He looked to the wall. The Halcyon members lined up remained there.

"I wouldn't say you made me, but to your credit, you _have_ given me a lot to think about," Yamabiki added. "Unlike you, I don't think I have the petty cruelty for revenge. Not normally. But these past few days - well, I've simply been so out of my mind! So you'll have to forgive me, it may be that something a little darker crawled inside at some point. I guess it's true what they say, there's a little monster in all of us."

"No," breathed Kiriyu, "please -"

Yamabiki leaned over and stuck Kiriyu with the syringe, then depressed the plunger. "So allow me to introduce you to mine," he said.

And knowing was a hard thing: knowing exactly how long it took a person in A block given their weight class and body fat percentage to succumb to the hormone in the A block drug. Being able to extrapolate with infuriating accuracy. Kiriyu had two seconds - then one - then none.

The last thing that Kiriyu remembered seeing before his vision blurred and his heart began to pound was Yamabiki leaving the lab and waving goodbye with a single cheery tentacle. With the other, he locked the door behind him.

But by that point, Kiriyu was too busy ripping off his own bindings with chemically fortified strength to get to the more feral monsters he'd created to care. He vaulted over a table scattered with lab notes in writing he couldn't read anymore, and ignored Specimen 72's grotesque claws to mount him, bucking and mindlessly hard - even as Specimen 72 reached up in defence to spear Kiriyu in the side. But blood didn't matter anymore, because there was this need, this awful pulsating need between his legs, and it grew, and grew, like a hunger he couldn't sate...


End file.
